I’ll Meet You There, by Heather Demetrios Publication: February 3, 2015, by Henry Holt and Co. Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Romance Pages: 388 Format: Hardcover Source: Borrowed Rating: 
If seventeen-year-old Skylar Evans were a typical Creek View girl, her future would involve a double-wide trailer, a baby on her hip, and the graveyard shift at Taco Bell. But after graduation, the only thing standing between straightedge Skylar and art school are three minimum-wage months of summer. Skylar can taste the freedom—that is, until her mother loses her job and everything starts coming apart. Torn between her dreams and the people she loves, Skylar realizes everything she’s ever worked for is on the line.
Nineteen-year-old Josh Mitchell had a different ticket out of Creek View: the Marines. But after his leg is blown off in Afghanistan, he returns home, a shell of the cocksure boy he used to be. What brings Skylar and Josh together is working at the Paradise—a quirky motel off California’s dusty Highway 99. Despite their differences, their shared isolation turns into an unexpected friendship and soon, something deeper.
Michelle’s Thoughts:
I love dreamy books, books that make you feel like you’re the only reader in the world because it’s just fitting your style of reading. I’ll Meet You There was special, different, and had the right dosage of real-life issues and situations that many people, including teenagers like myself, face from day to day, night to night. It is a passionate tale that I cannot throw out of my head (and not like I would want to toss it out) and it is seriously recommended.
I’m glad that I am not the only person in the world who has not read this book. Heather Demetrios is an author who has always been on people’s favourites lists, and her writing supposedly always strikes people’s hearts. At the moment, I am sincerely grateful that I am one of those people whose hearts have been struck. This is such a witty, smart tale that I would never trade my experience for. If you enjoy unique but precious characters, writing that could make you bawl at any moment, and a lyrical, deep meaning, this is for you. But then again, who would not want that in a story?
“To wake up and know this is who I am, this is what I do, this is where I belong. To have tasks and accomplish them. To have some goddamn pride. And she needed backup, I could tell, and I wanted to, I don’t know, be her fuckin’ knight in shining armor, I guess, but I couldn’t get out of the truck fast enough.”
I’ll Meet You There focuses on an unexpected couple. Two teenagers, Skylar and Josh, are just trying to get out of their small home-town where not much goes on except for being stereotypical people. But when both of their worlds turn around, Skylar having to work for the whole summer and her dream of art school floating away, and Josh being injured in the Marines, they don’t have much hope left. The two “meet,” having known each other before but having their friendship grow could definitely start a gorgeous romance YA readers would not want to miss out on.
The hype that established itself around this book is real and meaningful. It absolutely makes sense that readers would go MAD for this book. Demetrios throws in a nice, realistic YA story that is different than the rest, still focusing on contemporary themes that many deal with at the same time. There’s romance, war struggles and finding a way to follow your dreams, as Skylar had. There could definitely be discouraging people out there who just do not understand what it is like to have big dreams and fall in love with life.
“Soon, the party was a distant murmur, the music and laughter already memories. I walked more slowly, feeling close to my dad as I looked up at the familiar bend in the creek and the trees that leaned over it. His spot. I wished he were there right then, to tell me why boys were such jerks. I wanted to ask him if it would always be this hard.”
Skylar could be your best friend. She is a character who seems like a real person—there are traces of her in every person and teenager. Ms. Demetrios spent a grand time making her be like readers and really show what it is like to be a teenager. Everyone has it hard and the teenage years could be the absolute bullshit years, and Skylar tried to make the best out of it which is truly magical. Josh too, I must say. They are a beautiful couple who WERE ADORABLE AND BEAUTIFUL AND MAGICAL AND ASDFGHIKL. They are the pure definition of love. And whoever says romance cannot occur in teenagerism is completely wrong, because it seems like the same story where two thirty year olds fell in love. It is absolutely believable.
Heather Demetrios then threw in an end that whirled me around, threw me upside down… whatever you want to call “that feeling.” I was shocked, I could not believe it, and some inner tears exploded somewhere in my body. It sure is a wonderful book, I thought to myself later on. And now? I am trying to encourage you to pick this book up too someday, whether it be tonight, tomorrow, in a week, or in a few years. It is one of those spectacular, mystical stories that can hook you up at any moment and leave you aching for years later. Then again, it is not really that heartbreaking when I think about it. THIS BOOK WILL MEET YOU IN HAPPINESS AND GRATITUDE.
DO YOU EVER FEEL THAT A BOOK IS JUST CLUMPED WITH FEELS AND HAPPINESS? DO YOU ENJOY DARKER THEMES WITH A BRIGHTER ENDING? WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT HEATHER DEMETRIOS’ WRITING? HAVE YOU GIVEN HER WORK A TRY?
Key to Book City 